


Viva Las Vegas!

by everytuesday



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Established Relationship, Fluff, Las Vegas Wedding, M/M, Minor Alice Quinn/Julia Wicker, Near Future, surprisingly little las vegas for a fic with the city named in the title AND the summary but idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 04:57:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18242837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everytuesday/pseuds/everytuesday
Summary: Quentin takes Eliot’s hand in his and draws it up to Eliot’s line of sight, his thumb brushing over the ring.“Oh,” Eliot squints at it. “Questing in Vegas, we really should’ve known.”or: "the magicians 5x05 will be quentin and eliot drunkenly eloping in las vegas im speaking this into existence"





	Viva Las Vegas!

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Viva Las Vegas!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19964416) by [fandom_The_Magicians_2019](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandom_The_Magicians_2019/pseuds/fandom_The_Magicians_2019), [WinteryFox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinteryFox/pseuds/WinteryFox)



> This is like post-season 4, post-Monster-possession, set in a vague theoretical future season. Just imagine this as the c-plot going on in the background of some thrilling heroics and adventures.

 

Waking up in bed with Eliot is normal enough for Quentin. In the couple of years since Eliot’s possession, they stop bothering to sleep apart. There are the odd few days when duty calls and they have responsibilities that keep them away, but they’re at the point where it isn’t one of them in the other’s bed as much as it is Quentin and Eliot in  _ their  _ bed.

The hangover isn’t uncommon either.

The slow destruction of all of reality via a magical virus infecting fountains in the Neitherlands has been the most horrific consequence to date from their increasingly bad plans to unfuck their previous fuck-ups. The current plan to stop it has been rocky from the get-go and involves collecting various magical artifacts for a spell/potion that might possibly cleanse the fountains from the virus, but only if they can find the right ingredients and the right fountain and get the exact right person to cast the spell. It’s a quest for idiots and it’s been too easy to spend several nights a week forgetting about their impending doom with copious amounts of alcohol and uncoordinated sex.

Something feels weird about this time waking up, though, as Quentin struggles to open his eyes and take stock of the hotel room around them. He peeks down at Eliot where he’s wrapped around Quentin and still sleeping.

Something’s different; something’s--

Quentin follows the length of Eliot’s arm until he gets to Eliot’s left hand on his thigh and registers the new ring there.

“What the fuck,” Quentin breathes. He checks his own hand and finds a matching ring.

Quentin tries to sort through the scattered memories he has of the past few days. Their current quest-to-save-all-reality took Eliot, Julia, Margo, and him to Vegas in search of an enchanted coin. His memory goes fuzzy after that point, but apparently...

_ Fuck. _

They’d been trying so hard to be adults about everything too. It’d been one of their more intense conversations in the aftermath of Eliot’s possession, but they’d agreed between their various hang-ups and traumas and the world ending every other week, being dumbass twenty-somethings about having a relationship wasn’t an option.

“Eliot,” Quentin taps him on the shoulder. “El, can you--” he shakes him again. “Wake up?”

Eliot moans into the pillow, then lifts his head slightly and cracks open an eye. “What?”

Quentin takes Eliot’s hand in his and draws it up to Eliot’s line of sight, his thumb brushing over the ring.

“Oh,” Eliot squints at it. “Questing in Vegas, we really should’ve known.”

“I don’t remember anything,” Quentin says. “Not like a blackout though.”

“Magic?” Eliot rubs his temples and grimaces as he sits up. “Oh yeah, that’s a magic hangover. Did we get the thing at least?”

Quentin rolls back over to inspect the bedside table. There’s a ridiculous gift basket in the middle, with a tiny balloon-on-a-stick that reads “CONGRATULATIONS” in big pink lettering. He slides open the drawer and sees a large golden coin the size of his palm nestled in a jewelry box, the front of which is engraved with an ornate heart.

“I think so. We probably shouldn’t touch it in case… I don’t know, can you buy a house while blacked out? Or adopt kids?”

“It’d be fun to find out,” Eliot says dryly.

Quentin notices his phone charging on the desk across the room and stumbles over to check it. While carefully not making eye contact with Eliot, he hedges, “You’re not freaked out by this at all? On a list of the most immature things you can do in a relationship, I’m pretty sure eloping in Vegas is like… top three.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t anyone’s fault. I think we can give ourselves a pass for a magic-item-induced accidental marriage.”

Quentin relaxes the tiniest fraction. When he powers on his phone, he sees six missed calls from Margo and five from Julia. There’s also several texts, one of which contains an address and room number that the other two are currently residing in.

“We should go,” Quentin says, collecting their clothes from where they’re scattered around the room. He passes Eliot his shirt and pants, then boxes up the coin and slides it into his own pocket. Eliot snags the gift basket on the way out and responds to Quentin’s eyebrow raise with a shit-eating grin.

The other hotel is just down the street, so they take the short walk and an elevator ride up. Eliot makes the odd comment about the scenery, but it’s tense and strange and Quentin feels inexplicably guilty, tension coiling in his stomach about how much responsibility they should be taking for what happened. And how much  _ he _ should take for what happened. Of the two of them, it seems far more likely he dragged Eliot into some stupid romantic affair under the influence of magic than the other way around.

He’s so lost in his own thoughts, it barely registers to him that they’ll have to explain what happened to Margo and Julia until they’re shuffling into the hotel room and Julia is hugging him.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

Quentin nods distantly. “Honestly the last thing we remember is...” he trails off and looks at Eliot, not entirely sure where his memory ends.

“Leaving the hotel to go meet with Josh’s friend’s friend of a friend,” Eliot says. “It sort of goes blank for me after that.”

“We got the coin though,” Quentin says, holding it up, then becoming aware of the ring on his finger and feeling the need to explain it, “and accidentally married in Vegas.”

“You  _ what _ ?” Margo gapes, scrambling upright and grabbing Eliot’s hand to inspect his ring. “This is so cheap, Eliot.” She looks indignantly at Quentin, “You bought him a cheap ring?”

“That is sort of the point of getting married in Vegas,” Eliot consoles her. “Also we were obviously under some sort of magical influence. I’m sure we’d get each other very expensive rings if were sober. Right, Q?”

Quentin’s brain fritzes out a bit, “Uhh, yeah.”

Julia takes the box from Quentin’s hand and inspects it. “This is definitely what we’re looking for. I can feel it, it has the same energy as the other ingredients we’ve found so far.”

“I feel like I should be more focused on the reality-saving quest, but honestly,” Margo waves her hand dismissively, “we save the world every other month. How often do my best friends elope in Vegas?”

“Hopefully only once,” Quentin says. “We should get back to Brakebills, see if any of the others have had luck finding anything.”

\---

It comes back in bits and pieces. Quentin will wake up in the morning with a few new bits of memory crawling back into his mind and a quick look over at Eliot will tell him he’s gaining it back at about the same pace.

\---

_ Quentin and Eliot get drinks while waiting for the contact Josh sent them. They don’t have more than one each and it’s the last they drink for the night. _

_ “We’ll get smashed after we find it,” Eliot says. “All the debauchery of Vegas in the aftermath of getting one step closer to saving the world. Seems right.” _

_ “And responsible.” _

_ “See? Sometimes we learn from our mistakes. Like how you can’t save the world wasted.” _

_ Josh’s contact shows up: A skittish older woman with a jewelry box in her hand. She hands it off to them and seems eager to get rid of it. When Quentin opens it, there’s a gold coin inside. _

_ Eliot picks it up and flips it over in his hand a few times. “Well it’s definitely magic.” _

_ “And probably cursed,” Quentin says, snagging it back from Eliot and returning it to the box. _

\---

Alice gets back from her trip to a world she describes as “nothing but shrimp” with Penny and Kady around the same time they get back from Vegas. Julia and Alice immediately begin investigating the coin, putting the best of their brains together to find an explanation for what happened to Quentin and Eliot. They have a weird friendship. Quentin says as much to Eliot, who laughs.

“Oh Q,” Eliot pats his head. “They’re not friends.”

“They get along, they’re totally--”

“Nope,” Eliot shakes his head. “They’re not  _ friends _ .”

Quentin squints for a moment, watching Alice and Julia as their hands hover above the key, sparks flying from their fingertips. They lean with each other as they work, never more than a few inches between them, and Alice catches Julia’s hand to steady her as the spell starts to go haywire.

“ _ Oh! _ ” Quentin gasps, at the same time Julia shouts out, “Dammit!”

“It’s okay, Jules, we got something out of it,” Alice says. She slips the lid back on the box and the pair start over to join Quentin and Eliot on the couches.

Quentin looks back to Eliot, who’s smirking and pointedly not making eye contact.

“So,” Julia clasps her hands together. “It’s a magic coin.”

Quentin and Eliot wait for elaboration and Julia sighs.

“Sorry, that’s literally all we have. Josh said it was allegedly imbued with the power of love, but… there’s nothing on it. As far as cursed objects go, it seems pretty low-level stuff. Intense and fast-acting, but not dangerous. Which is good since we have to hang onto it for god knows how long until we get all the other pieces of the spell together.”

“I do appreciate that we woke up just married and not covered in the blood of innocents,” Eliot says, glancing at Quentin with a small smile.

“Yeah, been there, done that.”

\---

_ At first, they just gamble an extraordinary amount of money that Quentin keeps stealing from the ATMs while Eliot plays a giddy lookout. Quentin is ready to enter into a professional poker championship and they’re both completely convinced he’ll win. Every time they lose, it bounces off like it never happened and they race to the ATM again. Eventually a security guard catches on that they’re cheating somehow and kicks them out, albeit very confused as to how they’re doing it. _

_ Outside, they stumble down the sidewalk together, dazed and fully feeling the effects of the coin. _

_ “Hey we’re in Vegas,” Quentin says, like he just realized it. “We should get married. Right?” _

_ “Oh my god, you are right,” Eliot stares at him. “We’ve already got 50 years behind us, at some point you have to make an honest man out of me.” _

_ \--- _

“The coin takes away the concept of consequences,” Julia tells Quentin one day when they’re the only two left in the Cottage. “Just in case you were still wondering. Alice and I were poking at it again and she figured out this really cool spell that-- Anyway, whatever you guys did, it was whatever you’d do if you felt like there’d never be any repercussions.”

_ \--- _

_ “You know, Earth should be like Fillory,” Eliot says, hanging off Quentin’s arm as they wait in line. “Everyone gets a husband and a wife. I’d marry you and Margo-- Oh, we should call Margo! After we’re done. She’ll think it’s the best idea I’ve ever had.” _

_ “Aren’t you married to Fen still technically?” Quentin asks. _

_ “Yes, but that’s on Fillory. Imagine marrying two people on every world. Who else would you marry?” _

_ “I don’t know,” Quentin shrugs. “More than two and it gets so complicated.” _

_ \--- _

“Did you really say you’d marry me and Margo?” Quentin asks, staring up at the ceiling of their room after waking up from the nap that brought that particular memory back.

“Yeah, but don’t tell her that,” Eliot says. “She’ll feel bad she can’t because she’s destined to do some Fillorian alliance thing.”

_ \--- _

_ “Do you have vows?” the priest asks, frowning a little at the pair of them. _

_ “Um,” Quentin frowns. “I don’t--” _

_ Eliot clears his throat and takes Quentin’s hands. “Quentin Coldwater. I’m bad at this and definitely very high on whatever magic was on that coin, but you deserve a vow so off the top of my head-- I was hitting on you from the day we met and I never thought you weren’t straight let alone  _ into  _ me, but I’m very glad you are. Also you almost destroyed the world to save my life and stood by me even when I was possessed by a monster--” he turns to the priest. “It’s not a metaphor, it was a literal monster possessing my body and killing people. And he never left me. It was very stupid, but also…” he looks back to Quentin, starting to get misty-eyed, “incredibly romantic. So. This is me saying that I’ll also never leave you. Here’s to another next fifty years, or probably less considering the world is always ending.” _

_ “Eliot, um, I-- don’t actually know what to say,” he laughs. “I love you? I love you. Nothing in our lives makes sense, ever, but you do, somehow. And I’d just really, really like to marry you right now before we come to our senses, so...” _

_ He leans forward, grabbing Eliot’s shirt and pulling him down into a kiss. Distantly, he hears the priest mumble something official-sounding, but he’s too caught up in it all to pay much attention. _

\---

Eliot nudges him awake, “Hey, do you remember everything now?”

“Yeah,” Quentin says around a yawn. “You?”

Eliot nods.

“We were _ really _ high, but your vows were sweet.”

“No-consequences-me really just went out and admitted how hot I found the whole ‘willing to destroy the world for me’ thing, huh?”

\---

A month later, they’re getting close to a successful saving of the universe and they’ve only obliterated two realities in the process (neither of which was Fillory or Earth, so they’re counting it as a win). They have all the ingredients, so all that’s left is to find the spellcaster and the right pool in the Neitherlands to set off a chain reaction that’ll cleanse all of reality from the virus destroying it.

The current problem lies in how to decide who casts the spell, if any of them. Julia volunteers, but Quentin and Penny are staunchly against it.

Quentin stretches his arm across the couch behind Eliot, tucked comfortably against his side as the debate carries on. He feels Eliot watching him as he gets more frustrated about the possibility of Julia trying to tackle the spell on her own.

“This is the only option,” Alice says. “I’m sorry, Q, but if Julia thinks she can do it, we should give her the shot. I believe in her.”

“We’re not even there yet,” Eliot interrupts the flow of conversation, still watching Quentin. “Like my husband said, we still have to find where the fountain is before we can--”

All eyes in the room fall on the pair of them and Quentin stares straight ahead, trying to hold up under Julia’s interrogating look, but he can’t, so he turns to Eliot, who seems oblivious.

“We kept meaning to get it annulled but things have been so busy and it was a magic-induced marriage,” Eliot reminds them, “There’s no way to prove we were drunk. Everyone we called just kept suggesting divorce and I’m not going to  _ divorce _ Quentin.”

“Wait, are you going to let it stick?” Margo asks, eyes wide with delight. “Shut the fuck up. El, I’ve been planning your bachelor party the way most girls plan their weddings. You can’t just let a sex-magic-fueled Las Vegas marriage stick.” But she’s grinning at him the whole time she chews him out. “I guess I’ll be giving my best man speech when you get your vows renewed in ten years. If we’re all alive then.”

\---

They save the world again and somehow, impossibly, everyone is fine. They’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, but for the time being, things seem almost okay.

Quentin finds himself holding Eliot’s hand as they meander across the Brakebill’s campus to an actual class for a change. Quentin slows their walk down to a stop and steps in front of Eliot to face him.

“I know this all happened weirdly,” Quentin says. “But it’s  _ us _ so it always had to be weird, right?”

Eliot tilts his head at him, waiting.

“Like Jules said, the coin just took away the concept of consequences, so we just did what we really wanted to do, subconsciously. And yeah, it’s not what people in mature, adult relationships do, but-- What I’m trying to say is, I don’t care that we were too busy to get an annulment. And honestly I don’t even care that it happened in the first place. When would either of us have ever talked about that?”

“I’m glad it happened too,” Eliot says simply, proving the whole follow-up speech Quentin had rehearsed in his head unnecessary.

Eliot retakes Quentin’s hand and pulls him along, continuing their walk.

“So when you called me your husband in front of everyone, you were just showing off, right?”

“Julia and Alice were getting too cocky about lasting longer than anyone’s bets. I already lost $50 to them, I’m not losing our status as designated power couple.”

Quentin laughs.

So they rushed into things and they fucked up, but of course it wasn’t an entirely graceful transition into matrimony. Nothing they’d ever done had been a graceful transition. When Quentin looks over at Eliot next to him, he’s happy. They’ll keep figuring it out, one magical absurdity at a time.

**Author's Note:**

> I generally think accidental marriage AUs are dumb, but I made a post on tumblr about how 5x05 should be a queliot elopement in Vegas and I couldn't get it out of my head.


End file.
